


A Song of Rain

by LORBEERPRINZ



Series: Tumblr Promts [7]
Category: Show By Rock!! (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Prompt, conflict ball is strong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LORBEERPRINZ/pseuds/LORBEERPRINZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when the rain sings its sweet melody right into someone’s ear, that doesn’t always mean it’s easy to make a song of it. Sometimes it will just keep on playing the background melody for the desperate tries of pouring out one’s heart and soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song of Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand another tumblr promt done! This time it was "You're not useless" and I probably fucked around with canon everywhere x'D Oh well, the requester did like it, so...

Rain outside. It sang a pretty little song against the glass window that had always been quite inspiring for Shuu, but not tonight. The young musician hung over the kitchen table in low spirits, a few wrinkly sheets of paper in his hands.

The papers were full of notes, lines and everything that had gotten into his head while trying to write a new song and even though he had liked it personally, his bandmates had rejected it almost instantly. Too confusing, too weird, too far away from what their band was trying to stand for. And this one had been, what, the third song in a row everyone had rejected? Something along these lines.

 

“Damnit…”

He sighed, had a look out of the window above the table. The rain was so heavy it was impossible to actually look outside, the big city lights of Midi City were nothing more than a bunch of colorful blurry dots on the glass.

“Guess I really suck at songwriting…”

 

He heard the turning of keys, then the door.

Rom was finally home.

 

“Hey Shuu, I’m back.”

When receiving no actual response, the leopard peeked around the corner into the kitchen, finding Shuu sprawled over the table in the most miserable way he had seen him in in quite a while. He took off his shoes and blazer, everything soaked with rain despite the umbrella he had been carrying.

“Why are you moping around like that? You could have at least made some dinner, you know.”

 

Once again, Shuu sighed.

As he waved the lyric sheets around, Rom remembered what had happened just a day before during band rehearsal. Maybe they had all been a little too harsh ripping Shuu’s new attempt at a song apart, but this was the third time he had written something like that and apparently still not learned from his mistakes. Sometimes it felt like Rom was dealing with a kid, even though Shuu was only a month younger than himself.

“Really, Shuu”, he sighed as he sat down next to his flatmate, “we talked about that song yesterday, it’s nothing we can use. Except, of course, if you changed it. Have you?”

Shuu threw the sheets onto the table and went through his black hair for a bit, flipping his long bangs over his forehead just to let them fall back into their original place again.

“I tried all day, but nothing came of it…”

 

Rom leaned back in his chair, realizing how wet the back of his pants had become in the rain. He looked around the small kitchen and equally small living room and it was his time to sigh now.

“So… you’ve been hanging around all day doing practically nothing…”

Shuu leaned back as well, but didn’t answer. He stared at his papers.

 

This wasn’t true. He had tried his best making the song better, had squeezed his brain as much as he could.

Saying he hadn’t done anything was unfair.

“It’s not nothing!!”

He jumped up from his chair, slammed his palms onto the table. Shuu stared at Rom, he felt his face grow hot with anger. There was actually so much he wanted to say in his defense, but it just wouldn’t come out. It was the same like when he tried to write lyrics for a song.

So frustrating.

 

But what was almost even more frustrating was how Rom just sat there and looked at him, his head resting on one hand. He wasn’t happy about this discussion, that was for sure, but Shuu had the feeling he was not taking it – not taking _him_ – all too seriously right now.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

 

The leopard sighed.

“Look, Shuu. We need songs that transmit the heart of us all to the audience if we ever want Ambivalence to be something bigger. But as long as we aren’t at that point yet, we need something else to keep ourselves living. All those bills don’t pay themselves, you know.”

Shuu sighed. He knew all that, it was all logical, as it was typical of Rom. But still, he felt like being accused of doing nothing all the time. He did all he could, Rom knew that. And he hated that this guy acted like he didn’t realize this, just waltzing over his feelings with huge steps.

He went through his hair again, gritted his teeth while trying not to shout at Rom. He felt so terrible.

 

“And these things” Rom gestured over to the small kitchen and the little collection of pill boxes on the counter. “they cost money too, unfortunately.”

That was it. This was just too much.

Aside from the fact that Shuu was trying to pay for his medication as much by himself as he could, he felt bad about the whole situation already as it was. He didn’t need to hear it being a nuisance from the mouth of the one person he loved most. It just was not fair at all.

 

“It’s not like I _asked_ for all these!!”

 

Shuu stomped off.

He had to get away, somewhere else, he just couldn’t stand to look at Rom’s face right now, this calm face while explaining how he was a liability to him and his bank account. Hell, in this situation Shuu would have actually preferred if Rom had shouted at him. His serious calmness was so very unnerving.

Unfortunately for Shuu, their apartment was so small that there was hardly place to really get away from Rom. Within seconds, he had entered their shared bedroom, slammed the door behind him and occupied the darkest corner he could find.

He would have rather run outside, into the city to cool off, but not in this terrible rain. Shuu could hear it slamming against the bedroom window and right now it was singing a song of mockery.

 

He listened to it for a while and it gradually turned into a soothing rhythm. He banged his black haired head against the wall slightly, sunk down to his knees.

He was so stupid.

Shuu looked at his sheet of lyrics again, which he had taken with him without even noticing it. It had been turned into a small ball of paper in the course of their fight and now the words on it looked weird.

Yes, they were weird. Not only because they were now existing on a crumbled background full of wrinkles and occasional spots, but they also sounded weird when Shuu recited them in his head. He banged his head against the wall again in attempt to somehow suppress the tears he could feel rising in his eyes.

 

Rom had been right. They all had been right.

This song sucked.

And no matter what he did, it just wouldn’t get better.

 

 

He heard the door open, but didn’t move.

 

For a while, Shuu didn’t even know for how long, there was no actual sound in this bedroom other than the steady hum of the rain. It almost felt like the door had opened all on its own without any input. But from the corner of one eye he could see the light it cast into the room and the shadow that had formed in this light from behind.

Another moment of silence passed. He still tried not to cry.

 

Another sigh, but it kind of sounded different this time.

The shadow raised an arm, seemed to place it behind the head or something like that. Like people do when they feel embarrassed. Shuu did nothing, he waited for the shadow to speak up.

 

“Look, Shuu… That last one was terrible, sorry about that. I know you pay your medical bills on your own, but sometimes… well, how to put it… if you really want to make a living off music, you’ll have to put some more work into it, you know.”

Yeah, great. As if he wasn’t working hard already, as if he didn’t put all his essence into this band. Getting big was his dream, _their_ dream, and he did everything for it he could.

But on the other hand…

Shuu looked at the paper in his hands again.

 

“I do know. And I guess it’s true, I kinda suck at this, don’t I?” This time it was him sighing.

“I’m so useless for this band…”

 

The shadow grew bigger, coming closer to him and turned into a very familiar warmth and smell, something he loved and would never be able to get enough of.

Rom’s hand ended up on his head, patting him like a little pet at first, then starting to caress one of his big, fuzzy ears. He always loved it when Rom played with his ears.

“Oh, cut that crap, you’re not useless. Everyone’s got their strong and weak points, right? Songwriting isn’t your thing, so whatever. The rest of us is gonna keep up writing songs instead, and you’ll sing them because that’s something you’re great at. Deal?”

 

“Yeah, I guess…”

Shuu saw a tiny box dangling before his eyes. He grabbed the pack of cigarettes and finally stood up again with a deep breath. He looked at the paper in his one hand again, drew a cigarette from the box and with it sitting unlit in one corner of his mouth, he almost dramatically scrunched up the sheet into the tiniest ball he could manage and tossed it behind the bed into an even darker corner.

Rom pulled a face at this sight at first, but then it lit up again a little. He offered Shuu his lighter.

“Feel better?”

Shuu nodded.

 

He couldn’t really bring himself to smile again yet, some anger at Rom still remained, but it was not as bad anymore. He could at least face him and maybe after this smoke he would be even better.

He took another deep breath and let Rom light his cigarette. As they both looked up again and their eyes met, Rom suddenly started to laugh.

 

“Shuu, you’re eyes are glistening! Did you cry?”

The comment earned him a kick to the knee.

“Of course not, dumbass!”

Rom just kept on laughing as he lit himself a cigarette too. “Yeah yeah, sure, as if.” He grinned and managed to evade a second kick. Shuu tried again and they ended up awkwardly dancing around the bedroom like this. It was so stupid it managed to make Shuu laugh as well.

“Fuck you, Rom.”

 

“Nah”, came Rom’s reply with a sheepish grin, “I’m rather gonna fuck you.”

 

*

 

The rain sang yet another sweet song, to which Shuuzou listened carefully with a sheet of paper and a pen in his hand. Maybe the drops on the window were easier to turn into words.

There were some lines on the sheet already, old and worn, the ink already fading. But they still felt incomplete.

 

“Shuuzou-kun, what are you doing? Writing a new song?”

Riku’s head peeked into view, the boy’s ears twitching with curiosity. Shuuzou held the paper slightly out of his view just to be sure. He decided to carefully fold it back together into the tiny little rectangular shape it had spent the last few years in untouched.

“Well, maybe”, he answered, followed by a little laugh. “It’s not really good, though.”

 

“A new song?”

Kai appeared next to his brother and just as happy about the prospect of new music to present to their fans.

“Whatever it is”, he began, “I’m sure it’ll be great anyway!”

 

Shuuzou laughed again, looking back and forth between the paper in his hands and the two boy’s near identical faces.

“You twins, I’ll tell you a secret.” He winked as Kai and Riku scooped closer.

“I’m actually really terrible at writing songs.”

 

The boys looked at each other in slight confusion, then they turned back to Shuuzou and laughed a little, almost simultaneously.

“Oh come on, Shuuzou-kun, that’s not true! All the songs you write are always perfect for Trichronika, they fit so well. Everyone loves them!”

 

“Well, maybe not everyone. There are definitely things I can’t do, and people that don’t like what I do…”

The older one of the trio sighed and leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, eye to eye with the raindrops. He twisted and kneaded the paper in his hands, one ear so close to the rain outside that he hoped he would finally be able to hear the rain’s right melody and lines.

But all he could hear was how it was still slightly mocking him in sweet words.

 

The ones he brought to paper would never be as sweet.


End file.
